"I am not the Land-O-Lakes girl."

For the first time this morning, I was actually awake enough to look at the bottle of creamer as I was pouring some into my coffee (on normal days I use my sense of touch to get the coffee task completed because my eyes don't quite work until i'm half a pot in). Low and behold this was what I found:

Can't quite see what I'm referring to? Here, i'll make the image larger:

It may just be me, but I somehow feel that this is wrong on so many subtle levels. Maybe it's because they're depicting an entirely stereotyped image of an Indian woman holding their product, who probably has no actual affiliation with the product whatsoever. (This butter is also made in Minnesota and the last time I checked is vastly far from the Plains Indian tribes) Or maybe it's because the woman depicted appears to be submerged in nature and by association making the butter appear environmentally friendly? So I did some research and found the original depiction of the Land-O-Lakes Butter Maiden:

She almost looks Caucasian in this picture doesn't she? Like they just took the girl next door and dressed her up in "traditional indian clothes" which we all know now are completely stereotyped from the Westerns. I couldn't really find anything on how people responded to this logo, but I found a few interesting tidbits of information. The first, halfway through the page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_O'Lakes, mentions that they purposefully re-did the Butter Maiden to look more modernized. This "earthly friendly" butter was also accused of animal abuse to their cows. This, I think, is what made me the most upset... the fact that they're just using the imagery of these people to make their product seem better than it really is. Also, I did find the top five most politically incorrect food icons. And surprise, surprise look who made #1 http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2011/07/top_5_politically_incorrect_fo.php

Lets just say I am going to the store and buying the fancy Laura Lynn brand of creamer next time.

Politically Correctness or Correct Politicallness?

As I ate lunch with two of my buddies yesterday, we started talking about the problem of politically correctness. Our main conversation centered on the fact that no matter what people call different "races" or ethnicities, there will always be someone or a group of people that disagree with the title or find it offensive.

I felt comfortable enough with my friends to ask them what they preferred to be known as. My first friend strongly declared that he hated being called "African-American" because he had no idea if his family was even from Africa. He liked the term "Black" because it was a larger, more global term that he could align himself with. However, my other friend promptly said that he didn't care if people called him African American or Black as long as their motives aren't trying to offend him. 

I think it's interesting to note that where my first friend didn't know his heritage and found the term African-American offensive, my second friend knew his heritage (distantly from Antigua) and he didn't mind being called anything. It was almost like my first friend was being protective of his anonymity making sure that no one classified him under a specific "genre" of Blacks. To him it seemed like Black was a more fitting term because it was the larger umbrella that he could fall under and still have an identity.

We also had a really great discussion about the aftermath of the civil rights movement and where our country has been headed and what the next step was. I confessed that I felt something similar to White Guilt and that I didn't know how I could rectify the past..... my friends were too nice to me and explained that there wasn't really anything I could do except continue being a good person and that change starts small and also takes time. (It sounds like I'm making myself sound like an awesome person, but really my friends are too good for me).

It was really nice talking to them and I'm very grateful that they didn't laugh at me with all my sillY questions. If anyone actually reads this blog, I recommend breaking any surface level conversations with friends of different ethnicities and really talk about life. You'll be surprised at what you discover.

My Friend Jordan

After my first blog entry about my Indian friend, Jordan, I felt convicted to talk to him about everything. I sent him a brief message on FaceBook with an apology about my lack of apathy towards his culture and/or interest in ever wanting to know more than surface-level things about his heritage. I honestly didn't know how Jordan was going to respond, but I was hoping that he would be openminded about my apology and not think I was just trying to make myself feel better that I apologized to an American Indian....


A couple days went by without a response and I began to feel worried that I had said the wrong thing, or that Jordan was mad at me for something. But Jordan could not have been more nice. He actually seemed excited that I was generally interested in hearing him discuss his heritage. I don't have much more to say now because we haven't talked on the phone yet, but I hope to report back with some more insight into my friendship with Jordan and what I will learn from talking with him.


(I updated my first blog entry with a photo of Jordan to put a face to his story. He's dressed up for halloween as an Indian. I tried finding a photo of us together, but sadly I couldn't find any.)

Identity Crisis

Today in class we watched a documentary on the similarities and differences between the Jewish Holocaust and the American Indian Genocide. Dr. Hobby introduced the film with a warning of White Guilt which didn't set my hopes high for feeling too good after watching the film. And like I predicted, the film evoked a pained state of mind in me... I hated what my "race" had done to the Indians and I hated how America has masked our true history and ignored the massacre that we created so carelessly. The more I thought about the current state of America the more I felt hopeless that I could do anything to rectify the past's injustices with a remedy, a cure.


Dr. Hobby explained that he didn't want us to feel a sense of White Guilt because it was dangerous to how we studied and examined their culture and ours, but I have to slightly disagree. This White Guilt, or whatever you want to call it, isn't just myself moping around because of the past. Yes, I do feel slightly lost in where to go from here, but I'm more enthralled by the sheer injustice of it all. It brings to mind not just the injustice of the American Indians, but also the injustice in the public school system, in the cycle of poverty and homelessness, in the public school system, in the food crisis, in human trafficking.... it brings it all to mind how much this world is divided and organized and tiered and how it judges and how the people in power allow those without to fall victim to a cycle of distress, but then turn around and judge them for it. It may seem ridiculous to be this upset at many things that I can't control, but the whole idea of injustice just pisses me off. Remaining in this guilty state is what I think Hobby was warning from. I can agree that it would do no good to just stay mopey. However, taking this White Guilt and using it as a platform for change is something different entirely. This White Guilt isn't just a stopping point for me, but I see it as a jumping off point that I can use to begin reconciling a broken world. How I'm going to do that is another question altogether that I haven't even figured out, but at least I'm at a point that I can recognize that there still needs to be work done.


Getting back on track... During the entire movie the American Indians continually discussed the importance they place in their identity as an Indian. That, or sometimes they would discuss how they didn't like their identity as an Indian. The most remarkable quote that I heard was a man who said, "I once tried to White, but they wouldn't let me." After I heard this I started thinking about why people so badly need an identity to define them. Whether it's their race, their culture, their hobbies or interests, hair color, clothing... etc... people use their identity as a way to fit in or stand out amongst a crowd. Regardless that people may not immediately agree, everyone, and I mean everyone, is continually seeking to uncover their identity.


This got me thinking about God, as most things do, and I came to a conclusion about identity today in class. As I've started research for my senior thesis on the relationships within Genesis, I've discovered that three relationships were essentially broken during the "fall" of humanity. Man's relationship with nature, Man's relationship with Man, and finally (and most pertinent to this blog's discussion) is Man's relationship with God. Before the fall, Man was in perfect unity with God. Man found its full and complete identity within their relationship with God. All understanding and relationship between humanity was in a state of Shalom. However, when Adam and Eve chose their own path they broke their connection to God who provided them with their identity. Ever since then, people have been looking their identity in other things. It wasn't until God sent himself as Jesus to bring us back to direct relationship with God............


But this understanding of a lost identity helps me understand the reasoning behind all the competition in the world between races, classes, cultures...etc. People are constantly trying to prove their worth... their status... their whatever... because they lost sight of where to find the true fulfilling identity in God. I know that the solution to all of this identity crisis is Jesus, but sometimes I wonder what that would look like played out if everyone came to the same conclusion. This branches over into a whole other hot topic of how missionaries are to bring the Gospel into other cultures without bringing Western Christianity, but it do think that it's still relevant. I'm stuck at this point...... If everyone could see themselves within the context of their true identity, Children of God, at what point do people begin to lose aspects of their cultures? I know and firmly believe that different cultures provide many beautiful ways to see and explore the world, but will that be lost if everyone chooses to align themselves as one People? one Humanity? One body of Christ? I guess priorities would change and what really matters in the world would dominate instead.....

Real Apache, my butt.

As I was thinking on topics to write about for this blog, I realized that there is so much more American Indian culture surrounding me than I realized. From dream catchers hanging in the rear-view mirrors in friend's cars, to the foccasins ("fake moccasins") that hipsters wear to show that they are earthy..... imitations of televised American Indian culture is everywhere around me and until now I've never stopped to notice it. The most striking example that I've come across recently was a particular magnet that my mother gave me a few years ago. It's been on my fridge for years now and I've never really given it much thought other than the fact that it makes me all warm and cozy inside every time I read it. It goes something like this:

Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies,
But there is one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place,
To enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

Turns out, this Apache blessing isn't even real. I was trying to look up the history of it and I found that it was actually written for the 1950 novel Blood Brother by Elliot Arnold. When I discovered this, I felt cheated. Here my mother and I thought that we were reading something very spiritual, meaningful, and culturally impacting, but no. I don't know who I was mad at, either. Was it whoever created the magnet? Was it Arnold who made up the "blessing"? Or was I mad at myself for being so naive to actually believing it?


The more I thought about it, the more my attention turned to wondering why I believed that it was real and why I liked the blessing so much. Growing up, my mother (on of the fore-mentioned closet hippies of my hometown) surrounded herself with a lot of American Indian memorabilia. By this I mean that she had a lot of Indian music, jewelry, books on Native spirituality, and I honestly believed that she internalized somewhat that she felt native herself. I can often remembering her taking me on hikes in the woods and explaining that the woods had healing powers.... something that I don't disagree with now, but back then I thought she had sipped too much special juice. What my tangent is trying to explain is that there is something very comforting and peaceful that my mother finds when she taps into her spiritual side. She is very much connected to nature and she has a very deep, romantic pull for the American Indian culture that respects it too. I find that it's more than just respect, though, but a intricate, observable, tangible connection and American Indians are rejoicing in that revelation. 


Maybe this is why I believed that the blessing on the magnet was real. Even though it wasn't authentic, by reading the words I was still able to tap into something inside of myself and find that peace, that happiness, that joy. I often like to think of this whenever I read the Bible, especially Genesis. But that is another blog for another day....

Little J-Walk and the Infamous White Guilt

In my hometown of Fuquay-Varina, diversity was hard to come by. Besides the typical suburban prep-kid or the cowboy who drove his tractor to school that one day in February, the most diverse we ever got was when the annual corn and tobacco festival that summoned the hidden, free-spirited hippies from their dark corners and come out into the eyes of the town. But even then there were only about three of them and as soon as they bought their yearly supply of deep-friend corn patties (because face it, who can deny deep-fried corn patties?) they went quickly back to where they came from. However, when I reached eighth grade, our town witnessed the most bizarre thing to happen since a Fuquayan attempted to unicycle; a family of American Indians moved to town.

The oldest, Jordan, was my age and he was placed in almost all of my classes. Even though he spoke perfect English, everyone insisted to greet him like he didn’t know English at all. A “HOW,” accompanied by a stern fist on the chest was the usual greeting given to Jordan. You could see it in his eyes that he was annoyed but didn’t want to say anything because he was the new kid. Somehow he ended up in my close-knit group of friends and he quickly became the “token-Indian kid.” Every Halloween he dressed up like a Plains’ Indian, full-feathered headdress, moccasins, and a makeshift machete. No one really ever asked Jordan if it bothered him… we all had too much fun with our Indian friend who had really cool scary stories about his family.

Looking back, I don’t think I ever even took the time to ask him where his heritage lay. He could be Cherokee, Crow, Navajo, or anything else for that matter. My only clue was that Jordan once told me he hated all country music because of what the Cowboys did to the Indians… Anyways, all our friends and I just saw was, “Indian.” I can see now how we stereotyped Jordan making him the blunt of all our jokes without ever getting to know his background or the uniqueness of his family history.

I feel awful now that I look back at my friendship with him, but the more I think about it, the more I begin to question how much Jordan actually liked the attention. I’m not justifying how we treated Jordan, but after awhile he seemed to boast in his newfound identity, sometimes referring himself as Little J-Walk. I almost wonder if he lost a lot of himself to a larger, generic version of the televised American Indian because that's what we kept enforcing on him. But it’s understandable if you look at Jordan’s story… how he moved to an almost completely Caucasian town where people weren’t that informed on American Indians. Heck, I still don’t think many Americans realize that there is more than one type of Indian. We just assume that what’s portrayed on television reflects the actual world. But it absolutely does not.

After watching “Reel Injun” I felt what most fellow empathetic Caucasians call “White Guilt.” I know that I had nothing to do with the extraction and forced-exodus of thousands of American Indians from their homelands, or the slaughter at Wounded Knee, or even the movies that depicted Indians as blood-thirsty savages, but somehow I still felt guilty simply because it was my “race” that did do those things. I wanted to run to the nearest reservation and find the first Indian and apologize for how my ancestors treated their ancestors. As silly as that sounds, I have some desire to reconcile the past. The same thing applies to being Christian and remembering the awful people responsible for the Crusades or all the other hypocrisy and injustice in the Church. I just hate being thrown in the same category as those who have done horrible things out of my control. I see how enraged some American Indian activists can get and I want to shake my fist and scream, “WHY ARE YOU MAD AT ME? IT WASN’T ME!” I get mad sometimes because as much progress as America has made through civil rights and enforcing political correctness, I sometimes feel that American Indians refuse to stop holding the past over our ignorant, racist, White heads. They refuse to let the White people forget what "we've done." And because of that it's almost like they are prohibiting progress as much as White people are. This is not saying that I want everyone to forget what happened and to not learn from the past, but I do think that holding on to anger won't get the Indian nation where they want to go. I also think that Americans who aren't exposed to the history of the American Indians and remaining ignorant is just as deadly to the prospect of a reconciled America.

I don’t want this to sound all cheesy or cliché, but I do think that by taking this course I can somehow rectify a tribute Jordan and to the nation of American Indians. Maybe through looking at samples of their literature, exploring their history and legacy, and uncovering the misleading stereotypes I can somehow develop a deeper appreciation for their culture and history. Maybe through this course I can free myself of this White Guilt and begin to imagine a world where the two nations can come together.